A shepherd’s story brings meaning to life

Friday

A certain shepherd owned a flock of sheep. The sheep understood the shepherd and trusted his advice on how to avoid unfruitful living.

To the editor:

A certain shepherd owned a flock of sheep. The sheep understood the shepherd and trusted his advice on how to avoid unfruitful living.

The sheep followed the shepherd everywhere, awed by his knowledge. One day the shepherd told his sheep that he must rise and go to his father’s mansion; and once at that mansion, he would prepare a place for them.

Soon, as the shepherd had warned, he ascended. Although the sheep mourned the shepherd’s departure, lesser shepherds told unaware sheep that the shepherd had promised to return and gather every flock to that better place if they followed his advice.

After a few years, the lesser shepherds wrote documents about the departed shepherd’s promises and advice. Soon, those letters and documents were collected and bound into one complete Book of Instructions.

Many future sheep learned from the Book of Instructions, believed the shepherd’s promises, and joined a flock to follow the shepherd’s instructions while waiting for the shepherd’s return.

Meanwhile, as believing sheep traveled, they informed other sheep of the shepherd’s promises. The other sheep read the Book of Instructions, believed the shepherd’s words, joined a flock to follow the shepherd’s instructions and told their children and friends.

Through the years, the children and friends believed the Book of Instructions, joined a flock and waited for the shepherd’s return.

Centuries passed, and because the shepherd had not yet returned, many sheep forgot the promises. An increasing number of sheep ignored the documented advice for fruitful living and quit telling their children. Then, as those uninformed children grew to adulthood, unaware of the shepherd’s promises and advice against greedy, egotistical living, the children thought that everything in the pasture on which they grazed belonged to them. They snatched from others whatever they wanted.

Those unconcerned sheep lived as they pleased, respecting neither their neighbor’s personhood nor their neighbor’s property. Fewer children learned common decency at home, at school or from weakened government that increase control over society through propaganda and lies disguised as tolerance, compassion and political correctness.

Soon, without the shepherd’s advice taught at home, implied in school and posted in public view, respect and love for the shepherd and others degraded into overwhelming greed, narcissism and increased violence.

Today, elderly mothers and fathers become dishonored and abandoned in nursing homes. Spouses with incurable diseases are deserted. Thugs steal or kill for another’s property. Lust seeds adultery between genders and within genders, and it fuels deviants who rape and kill adults and children. Prisons expand but still overflow.

Today, when believers relate the shepherd’s promises, many listeners snicker and consider them worthless fables. Further, many listeners judge the shepherd’s advice as archaic, worthless for modern humans and unprofitable for their narcissistic comfort.

Sorrowfully for them, and suddenly one day as promised, the shepherd will return. The shepherd knows which sheep have followed his advice and waited patiently faithful. Thus, gathering the faithful as promised, the shepherd will transport them to his father’s house and will ignore the bleat of those who ignored his advice. No one left behind will have an excuse.

Nevertheless, until that day, the shepherd’s advice to overcome an unfruitful life remains documented in that Book of Instructions — read it. Don’t be left behind.

Even after centuries, the Shepherd’s words in the Bible still talk to the heart. The Shepherd’s words still promise each of us a place in his father’s mansion. The Shepherd’s advice for abundant living remains germane regardless of what carnal society clamors for and what kowtowing governments enforce.

Gene Poore

Jacksonville

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